Emerge America

Part of Emerge America, Emerge New Jersey is the quintessential political leadership training program for Democratic women. We are the twelth state within the Emerge framework and as with our national organization, we address the systemic underrepresentation of women in office, but we do it at the local and state levels. In so doing, we feed the pipeline for future women leaders of the country. Click here to find out more about Emerge America.

 

Our mission is to identify, educate, and inspire Democratic women who want to shape the course of our collective future by pursuing a career in New Jersey politics. To this end, we cultivate future leaders by developing their media skills, expanding their local-issue knowledge base, connecting them with mentors, and piquing their political savvy. As the only in-depth, seven-month training program, we give women across the state top-notch training and a powerful political network. If you have a passion for politics and want to run for office, Emerge New Jersey is therefore the elemental first-step to achieving this goal. We inspire women to run, and we provide them with the tools to win.

 

Of the thirteen U.S. House seats representing the state of New Jersey, not one is held by a woman. This stark reality of zero also holds for New Jersey's two U.S. Senate seats. At the state level, the numbers are marginally-better, at best: of the 80 seats in the Assembly, 24 are held by women; and of the 40 seats in the Senate, 11 are held by women. Equally dismal, the governor has a 22-member cabinet in which only five women occupy an office. And vying for worst state statistic yet is the number of women mayors in 2011: in a state of 566 townships, there are 89 women mayors - for a 15.7% rate of representation.

 

This is a problem that is fast-approaching critical mass. Our numbers are in free-fall and we cannot allow this to continue. 

 

The problem of women's political underrepresentation, however, will fundamentally and ultimately be for women to solve. One of the two newest states in the Emerge network as of June 2012, Emerge New Jersey was founded to fill this vacuum and create a legion of Democratic women leaders for generations to come.

 

From Newark to Cape May, with your help we can train women from all over the state to run for office - and thereby launch the new face of leadership in New Jersey politics.